This is the ninth in a series of blogs, shared with permission, about weeds in the garden. Each blog will discuss a common and specific weed found in Maine, its history, uses, what story it tells about the soil it grows in, and how to get rid of it. The original blogs, along with other gardening related blogs, can be found here.

This ugly little plant is what is actually responsible for your
allergies – not that beautiful yellow flowered goldenrod you often
attribute it to. Other names for ragweed include ambrosia,
horseweed, asthma plant, bursages and burrobrushes, American wormwood,
bitterweed, blackweed, carrot weed, hay fever weed, Roman wormwood,
short ragweed, stammerwort, stickweed, tassel weed.

Common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) is an annual that can produce 60,000 seeds a plant, and ragweed pollen is responsible for about half of all pollen related allergies in the US. It is also the first plant
in my list that is actually native to North America! Common ragweed is
considered an invasive, and in Queensland it is prohibited to be given away, sold or released without permission.

Although most of us want nothing to do with the plant, ragweed may have its uses. In the past it has been used to relieve nausea, fever, as a laxative, to soothe skin rashes and even as an antiseptic. There is a whole body of homeopathic research on the “like treats like”
principle – where ragweed pollen is used to reduce allergy symptoms.
The seeds, which are edible, pack an impressive amount of crude protein and fat, and each plant produces as much oil as a soybean plant. It is also a bioaccumulator for lead, which makes it useful in soil remediation.

What does it mean?

In general, ragweed prefers full sun, with disturbed and poorly
aerated soil, with few competitors, is tolerant of dry soil and likes
places where there is not much available potassium for existing plants.
Pfeiffer supposes that a lack of copper in the soil might be part of why
it creates such an allergy problem with its pollen.

One effective method of control is to slash or mow the plants, or to pull them, before they
set seed but when they are fully mature. A variety of herbicides have
been effective in killing ragweed, however in the United States, ragweed
is becoming glyphosate resistant. Another method of control is the use of insects, two of which:
stem-galling moth and the ragweed leaf beetle might help reduce the
prevalence the weed. Finally, overcrowding is considered very effective
as a method of eliminating ragweed in a couple of growing seasons.

Want to learn more?

If you would like to learn more about weeds, why they grow, and what that means about your garden, consider the following texts:

PDC students learning to build a swale at the Maine Heritage Orchard at MOFGA

The Resilience Hub and Midcoast Permaculture Design graduated its 20th cohort this summer from the internationally recognized Permaculture Design Course. Participants met five times over four months at the MOFGA fairgrounds in Unity. In that time we visited multiple permaculture sites, and learned hands-on techniques like plant propagation, sheet mulching, scything, and water-harvesting earthworks. We did a deep dive into the permaculture design process, which culminated in a three-day, start-to-finish, small-group design of our sample client’s 5-acre site in Morrill. It was an exciting weekend, stressful at times, but each group finished the project with multiple beautiful hand-drawn maps and a written report. Congratulations to the 2019 Unity PDC grads!

Ripe mulberries on a site tour!

Plant propagation

Dates for the 2020 PDC will be announced very soon! To learn more, check out maine-pdc.com.

This is the seventh in a series of blogs, about ancient soil amendments used in the garden. Each blog will discuss a common and specific type of soil amendment used in the garden, along with documentation for its use, as well as occasionally discussing why a particular soil amendment was chosen, or its relation to modern gardening practices. The original blogs, along with other gardening related blogs, can be found here.

Fancy name for a not so fancy product, and definitely not for the
faint of heart. If you are easily queasy, this may not be the blog for
you.

I first learned about using night soil in gardening when watching a
reality TV show where modern people had to survive life in a Victorian
world. The modern term is “fecal sludge” – so yes, if you had any doubts – night soil is human excrement.

Now days the idea of spreading human waste on a garden seems
downright barbaric. I polled a number of my eco-friendly minded and
garden-loving friends just to see how they took it, and without fail the
reaction was horrified. However, this concept is not new – and it is making a comeback. From complicated operations which create marketable “biosolids” to complicated systems which turn human waste into pelletized fertilizers, human waste as fertilizer is not just for hippies anymore.

However, if we go back in time, before the Victorian nightmen (as they were called), we have the Tudor English gong farmer.
Gong farmers were considered to be well paid (six pence a day during
Queen Elizabeth I’s reign), but it was not a job for the faint of heart.
At the end of the 14th century, there were 16 public bathrooms for 30,000 people – most of whom lacked private latrines. These workers
collected the waste and sent it to the countryside, where it could be
spread on the fields (Havlicek, Pokorna & Zalesak, Waste Management and Attitudes towards Cleanliness in Medieval Central Europe, 2017).

In Geoponika, Florentinus writes of human waste and calls it
better than animal dung (p87). Zadoks (Crop Protection in Medieval
Agriculture, 2013) found other authors who wrote specifically of the use
of human waste as well, it was believed to be free of weeds, which is
why it was considered superior. He also shares Augustín the Prior’s
discussion on how much Jewish farmers fertilized crops and suggests that
they likely used night soil. Night soil was also recommended to be
smeared on the roots of trees to protect it from insects.

What are the benefits of using night soil in the garden? According to Rachel Dring,
of the Sustainable Food Trust, it “provide[s] nitrogen, phosphorous
and potassium in a less soluble form than farmyard manure and
artificial fertilisers, which means [it will] remain in the soil for
longer and [is] less prone to leaching into groundwater or run-off,
which pollutes waterways. Biosolids also contain useful levels of
sulphur and magnesium and trace levels of micronutrients. Unlike
artificial fertilisers, biosolids contain 20%–80% organic matter, which
is critical for the health of soils.” It seems if you can get over the
ick factor, there may be something to using human waste in the garden.

This is the eighth in a series of blogs, shared with permission, about weeds in the garden. Each blog will discuss a common and specific weed found in Maine, its history, uses, what story it tells about the soil it grows in, and how to get rid of it. The original blogs, along with other gardening related blogs, can be found here.

Plantain is a wonderful weed. Heaven knows why you would want to be
rid of it. The most commonly found plantain near me is the Broadleaf
Plantain, and so this is the one I am discussing today. Plantain is
useful as a remedy for minor itches and insect bites – take the leaves,
chew them and place them on the affected area for relief. It is
considered throughout history as a cure-all; Pliny thought it would knit the flesh of dead things
together, and it is found in Lacnunga as a sacred herb. Indeed –
everyone from Chaucer to Shakespeare seemed fond of this little, now-hated plant.

Plantain thrives where the soil is best, and they prefer places where
the soil is hard and moisture is nearby. Cattle eat it, and in England,
says Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, it is grown hand in hand with clover. It is
well suited to use in walkways as it survives regular tramping.
Furthermore, because it, like many of our garden annuals, likes healthy
soil, it is quite nutritious. The leaves have iron as well as vitamins A, C and K.

What does it mean?

According to Jay L. McCaman , this means that the soil is likely high
in the following minerals: calcium, phosphate, potash, manganese, iron,
zinc and selenium. The soil is also likely high in boron and chlorine.
In sum, your soil is in nearly fantastic shape.

The best way to deal with an excess of plantain is to loosen up the
soil, both through tilling the area and also through the addition of
turned in mulch and extra earthworms. However, always remember to
consider all of the weeds in an area before deciding how to deal with
it.

Want to learn more?

If you would like to learn more about weeds, why they grow, and what that means about your garden, consider the following texts:

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This is the sixth in a series of blogs, about ancient soil amendments used in the garden. Each blog will discuss a common and specific type of soil amendment used in the garden, along with documentation for its use, as well as occasionally discussing why a particular soil amendment was chosen, or its relation to modern gardening practices. The original blogs, along with other gardening related blogs, can be found here.

There is a time and place for ash in the garden. High in lime and potassium (and containing carbon, calcium, and magnesium), if you burn wood you automatically generate it for free and without the work necessary to obtain other fertilizers. Free fertilizer and soil building is always nice.

Apples in particular apparently like ash, but young plants might burn if it is placed on their tender leaves. Slugs and snails are reluctant to cross dry ashes, but overall ash is considered very alkline so most garden reference materials say to use it carefully.

Varro talks about using ash – specifically in areas where there is nonatural “salt”,
and how the locals in these places instead added “salty coals” obtained
from “certain kinds of woods.” Interestingly, what type ofwood you burn makes a difference when determining the fertilizer value, so the reference Varro makes to “certain kinds of woods” is not just ancient fortunetelling. Columella says that good farmers should use ashes when creating “manure” for the garden.

Beyond as a soil amendment, there are a variety of other ways ash was
used in the garden. Ibn al-‘Awwām said to use ashes of fig or oak to
help yellowing trees (Crop Protection in Medieval Agriculture,
p114, J. Zadoks, 2013). Ashes were spread alone or added to mixtures
which were then spread on plants (from trees to young vegetables) as a
way to stop all manner of insects, and spread over young plants to help
protect them from night frost.

Pliny suggests ashes are a more gentle salt, and useful for keeping
figs and rue from rotting at the roots and an early 17th century author
suggests using ash from holm oak as a way to get rid of voles (Zadoks,
2013). In the Geoponika, Didymos says ashes “are the best”
because it also kills fleas and borer beetles beyond its natural
benefits to the soil (p248). In fact, there are 20 references to the
ways a farmer can use ashes in Geoponika.

Clearly, ashes were a pretty common addition to the garden,
especially since many of the plants that don’t particularly like them
(potatoes and blueberries, for example) are New World plants. If you
want a quick way to garden like a medieval gardener – ashes are an easy
way to get started!